Summer 2009 in Korea :)

Its been almost 9 months in this country for me, though I also visited India for half a month in between but it was a very hectic trip and As soon as I realize that I am at my home for some days out of whole year , the trip was over and I had to return to be here again. Now after almost two months of my return from vacation , I am kind of settling in again and got over the emotional ride which I had for few days after returning.

Its been quite hot here these days though definately not as hot as in India but yes heat and humidity at this time of the year in Korea is at the highest level for whole of the year inspite of quite a bit of rain. But for me like any other Indian its quite normal and easily bearable because its quite low as compared to we used to experience in Delhi.

Life is different now compared to our first few months, where we all Indians used to have regular get togethers, eating , outing together in groups but now it is changed, Its not that we dont meet or party together but the frequency is quite low as compared to our starting months. It is natural and understandable too, few of us has families here now so they have to give time to their families and also everybody now working for different teams, busy at their work and few of us working from different offices and locations. so Keeping these things in mind this lack of interaction between Indian colleques seems fair to me.

But for compensating this We are having interactions in our respective teams, As in My team I am the only Indian and working with not only Koreans but also people of different nationalities as Chinese, Canadian, Mongolian and few business partners are also Nepalese. So thats really a wonderful experience and also chance to know and share the culture and way of working with people of different cultures. But thats not too easy all the times , specially going for team outings its been really tough because I am the only Indian in the gathering of 15-20 people some time and frankly my limitations of having only certain kind of food (vegetarian) cost me lot and I also returned hungry from some dinner or lunch get tog ethers. But I don't regret as its my own choice, Though just sitting there with all eating and drinking is sometime difficult but make no mistake its really a great chance to know your peers and bosses personally even if it is with empty stomach:).

Apart from work , working out in company gym is the thing I do regularly these days. The Health Center at SKC&C HQ is a wonderful place with top class facilities and machines available to work out and keeps you fit. I was never a regular for exercising before but now its really a part of my routine and I thoroughly enjoy the work out and my new fitness level achieved because of it.

In spite of all wonderful experiences and practicing new habits and also benefiting from them, There is never a free lunch in this world, I miss India all the time, No matter what I am doing, where I am, there is a major portion of my heart/feelings who resides in my lovely country. some time this portion occupies the whole heart and I feel like running away but then I recollect my self and try to make me understand that 'you have to loose some to get some'.

But what to do 'Dil Hai ki Manta Nahin' :) But there are somethings which makes me feel closer to my land one of them is NDTV online broadcast which helps me to get closer to each and every thing happening back home and keeps me going in spite of great distance from all that.

I am just hoping to continue the good work, learning new things, watching new places and doing all this as fast as I can so that I get back to my country soon..

Love you India.......:)

IPL...The Passion is back...:)

If some one ask me what is one thing for which you can stay awake whole night and that too with out any regret, my answer would be 'Cricket'. And this is same for years now, and if I remember correctly, It is approximately 20 years, I am following the game with same intensity and interest. This is one thing that excites me more than anything. I remember all those sleepless nights when I used to watch India playing in newzeland, australia or westindies or even in toronto , I also remeber when I cried because India lost to zimbabwe in 1999 world cup and also that night which I past standing on street watching India play pakistan in toronto. There are lots of mad memories such as crying if electricty goes off in the city on the day of match or not having dinner if India lose the match and so on. Some one can say its sheer madness, But some how its life for me or any true cricket fan in this cricket crazy country.

Cricket has given me lots of best moments and also some sad days/nights but I don't regret, I just love it. You must be thinking all of a sudden why I am talking cricket, so friends I am again feeling excited, all those sleep less nights are back as IPL has started. A whole new concpet, top class player from around the world are playing together and against each other, It is like a "Kumbh ka Mela" for all those who regard and consider cricket as a religion. Although because of time difference here in south korea matches would be late at night for me but that really does not matter. last time around IPL was wonderfull and I am looking forward for the similar kind of buzz even it is not happening in India this time.

And IPL has already started, I was worried whether I would be able to see matches properly as there is no Indian channel available on TV and we are highly dependent on internet live streaming sites. Though these sites worked great for me during the last six months whenver India played, but you can never say that they will be available all the time when u need them.but luckily IPL itself providing free live streaming on their web site and at the time of the match I could find some or other source to watch match and hoping for same in next coming days.

Talking about IPL, Though I found it really very intresting but cannot decide which team I should support as I do not belong to any of particular city and also almost each team has some of my favorite stars whom I love to watch. It actually helps me to just enjoy the good cricket and support any team which has right approach and never say die attitude towards game. In first two days it is clear that this IPL is going to be different from the last one because of pithches and conditions. We can not change the playing conditios but I would rather love to see same kind of pitches as they were in India because T20 is total entertainment package and its appeal would go down if number of sixes and fours go down, so If some thing can be done to make the pitches flatter, it would be great for excitement of the public who love to watch T20 cricket.

But keeping the conditions and wickets in mind and after watching each team playing atleast once, my prediction , although predictions can go horribly wrong in T20 but for the discussion sake I think Delhi Daredevils seems to be strongest team for this season. Lets see how far they will go. So while hoping you all will enjoy this extravaganga of cricket in next 40 days or so, I am closing this entry and will back with more excitement and views about IPL-2.

They are criminals...by no means Hindus!!!!!

I had never been in an emberrasing situation like that before for being an hindu which I was in for that day. I was in a church few days ago. As I was talking to the guy there who was very kind, during the conversation after knowing that I am from India, he remarked that in India Hindus are killing christians. He was talking about the incidents in Orissa. Although He didn't know that I am a hindu but I was speechless in front of him. But then I recollected my self and I answered that the guys who are doing this are not Hindus, They are criminals. And I do believe that they are not only criminals but they are as bigger enemies of society and country as the terrorists who did 26/11 are. I had to feel emberrased because of those so called Hindus who not even know the meaning of humanity, knowing the meaning of religion is the far off thing for them. I also relaized that day how muslims in India and in whole world for that matter must be feeling when all the questions are asked to them after any of terrorist activities done by those jehadis in the name of the islaam. I felt pain of all those true muslims who believes in humanity and do not support the act of killing innocent people.

This is actually affecting me some or the other way. I was never a very religious person, but I pray occasionally and always proud to be a hindu. But now a days I am feeling a strange seperation from religion beause all these so called representatives of Hindu religion, who feels no shame in beating girls, who teahces the hatred with other religions in the name of religion.

I just shared this as I was feeling dizzy over all this.I feel we should stand up and counter these people in which ever manner we can. They are no Hindus. They should be taught a lesson. Let us show the way out by our voice.. and by our votes too.

Atlast Out of trouble....thanks to all who helped!!!

I feel relieved now a days as cold here is not as fatal now as it was few days back. It was most severe kind of winter I have faced throughout my life. temperature went down till -10 and it was irritating to go out in it. But now I feel more confident to face any kind of weather as there is nothing from that we restricted ourselves to do even while this kind of cold. I played cricket even in the temperature low down than zero, even tried my head to foot in ice skating :) in freezing cold, And what an experience that was!! But that pleasant experience ended with an accident. One of my friend got her arm hurt during skating, although she skates very well but a naughty Korean girl had pushed her during playing and she fall down. Thankfully It was not so serious as there was no fracture but still in a foreign country living alone where you have to do everything on your own, any injury may prove really difficult to handle. Keeping that in mind most of us stepped out of skating after that.

In last few days we faced one more challenge, One of my friend got abscess in some part of his body, he was hurting and was not able to walk, we took him to nearby hospital, we was expecting checkup, some cleaning and then few antibiotic medicines to heel him. But Doctor there had some horrible things to say. I don't know it was because of language barrier or some kind of insensitivity on the part of that doctor , In front of patient he said he is very critical and if he is not get operated immediately, he will die. we were stunned. That was most horrible and confusing moment I had faced, I didn't expect from doctor to say something like that in what we were treating as a small problem. On the one hand I was thinking that doctor wasn't able to understand his problem and on the other hand I was also correct in believing that any doctor knows best in this kind of medical problem. The guy in question got out of control, he started shouting that he won't stay in the hospital any more, he got scared, actually anybody would. yeah we were in emergency ward of hospital, as we got time to visit hospital only in late evening, there were two deaths just minutes back , people were crying and doctor said to him that you are the next. But somehow we decided that we are not going to stay in hospital overnight as we were not at all feeling confident about the doctors there and their communication. We had to take help from our Korean colleagues to communicate with them, and with their kind help we were able to make doctors understand that we are not going to stay there any more, although we had to sign an paper saying that if something happens after that doctors n hospital will not be responsible for that. I do not know that we were correct or not in coming back from there but we just had to do it.

But the problem was there as it was before, we needed some advice from a doctor we can trust. and here I want to thank orkut, it’s a wonderfull channel to contact and communicate with anyone you want. I met a surgeon Dr. Ashish from Delhi few days back on orkut as he wanted some information regarding korea as he was coming to Korea for couple of months. I just scrapped him stating my phone number and thankfully he called. Although Ashish was not in Seoul but he helped to contact Dr. Vineet Tyagi in Konkuk University Hospital here and with the help of Vineet our trouble got resolved, we felt safe in the presence of Vineet, and operation went successful and he is feeling better and safe after two days stay at hospital. It is actually wonderful to meet our own people here in alien country and I feel some kind of togetherness with them even I was meeting them first. And the way they helped is enough sign of the fact that they think same. so through this blog I want to thank Dr. Ashish Thakur and Dr. Vineet Tyagi for great help they did from bottom of my heart.

Other than this incident everything is going just fine. I more or less stopped cooking even I was cooking ok as I got to know If I cook myself I will eat only once or twice a week. so I stopped relying on my cooking and started having Korean food which is vegetarian and I am really surprised to see that there is lots of options available for vegetarians too. so less worries now for me till I got bored of Korean kind of vegetarian food but so far so good :)

so friends that’s it for now.. I will be back with some more interesting and learning experiences soon..

take care....

Life goes on.....

Hello friends... Hope u all doing well. I tried hard to take some time out and write my next entry but some or other reasons did not allow me to do so.
First of all, I want to pay tribute to all the brave heroes who had fought against terrorists and given their lives fighting with terror during the worst attack on mumbai and on India. This was an incident which really shocked me here sitting far away from my home. I was not myself for atleast two three days after the incident. there was lots of questions in mind, some fear, sadness and lots of anger. I tried a lot to write all my emotions and share with you all but it was hard even to share what you feel in those circumstances. Its about one month to that unfortunate incident and we all seems to back to the business again but make no mistake all the anger, all the emotions are present somewhere inside and I want this to stay for ever so that nobody including our politicans can take our lives for granted. I really do not know what is the solution to all this but I believe that we should all do our bit to fight against it, may be for the people who gives their lives we should try to make our lives wothy enough and meaningfull enough to be saved by those real heroes of ours.

Inspite of this all happened, Life doesn't stop and conitinue to throw challenges at you , challenges which makes you stronger, which make you learn new things, things you never thought you can do. Yes Cooking is the thing I never thought that I can do, but I do it, almost daily I cook and surprisingly I do not cook bad at all. I started from cooking sabji, although I cut my finger badly two times in first two days of my cooking, but as the days going I am doing better at cutting vegetables. I have hard time cutting onions and I tried to find an onion cutter here but no luck so far, and it is the most risky portion of my cooking exercise. For first few days I tried frozen rotis whch you just have to heat up and eat, but then I thought I should also make rotis and believe me I can make them and quite well too. I can say that because I show them to my mom on web cam and she approved it:). so after all this cooking I have a firm belief on the saying "where there's a will, there's a way". If one wants, one can do anything.

Apart from cooking, work is one thing which keeps me busy, we are doing some sample project right now and as it is the first assignment here for us so I want it to be done as efficiently as possible. Work was one of main reasons why I didn't find time to write. But now its almost done and we are in the phase of integration testing and bug fixing, I hope we will carry on with the momentum and deliver the best possible solution.

But its not that we are just working here, we are partying pretty regularly too. We used to organize small party in somebody's flat,party includes drinks, snacks, lots of jokes and small performances and in the end wonderfull dinner, which we used to eat sitting down in the circle and enjoying food made by some of us collectively. Here I want to appreciate the efforts of mainly Puneet, Deependra and Anil as they are mainly involved in the cooking in our parties and cooking for 15 odd people is not easy atall. so all in all these small parties are real fun. I am hoping to be part of lots of them in future.
There was a office party too around Xmas, and we had pizza in the 'Calefornia Pizza Kitchen'. Pizza was not as good to me as we have in India but still I liked it as I was having it after good three months. It made me emotional too for some personal reasons. Anyways, Service in the restaurant was really good, one of the girls who was serving pizza was real sweet, her name was even more sweet she was called 'bong bong'. she was looking like a doll and was behiving pretty nicely. I asked for a ice tea, when I finished it she brought me second, I had it too and then she brought me third, I told that I do not want to have now , and she kind of scolding me sweetly and said 'No no no no,keep silence have one..more..' And after that I could not send it back and had one more. Afterwords I requested her to have a snap with me and she happily agreed. so all in all was good time there.
In second round some of us went to a bar, although I don't drink but I went with all to enjoy and there was a fun time there too. Few of us there showed their capacity to drink and even koreans were amazed to see our(not me, I was the non performer there :))performance level in drinking.

So we are having good time here in korea, we have also started to play cricket in the weekend and having fun playing in temperature below zero.

Before closing the entry I want to wish all of you merry Xmas and very happy new year ahead. And I hope in new year we all do our bit not to forget the happenings in mumbai and the heroes who fought for our lives so that we do not have to see the terrible scenes like in Mumbai ever again any where in the country and in the world. Hoping for peace and happiness for all.

Thank you .. take care.....

Korea..As I first saw.

So its been more than two week here for me in korea, enough time to know atleast the basic of their culture and some intresting facts too which I want to share with you all.

Seoul has all the characterstics of being a super urban modern city that are sky high buildings, fast and furious cars, a super efficient and extremely simple metro service called 'Korail', wonderfull roads, huge shopping malls and not to mention clean and dust free environment which is the thing we cannot find in any Indian metro city. But the best thing which can make you love this city even more is the politeness and peace loving nature of the people here.

In the beginning when I used to roam around, no body seems to be intreractive except some elderly guys who used to give atleast a smile to me. Then In office I met some warm hearted and inteartive perosons and during the course of discussion I asked them about my experience of non-interactive koreans, then I come to know the reason. they told me that though koreans are really warm at heart and helping by nature but they will never start interaction with you as they are not good at english and most of them do not know english so they always hesitate to interact. And when I visited markets, malls and places , I found them right, language is a barrier is for sure but except that people here are more than willing to help and when you start talking to them , they are really sweet and make genuine efforts to help you as well they can. I can recall incidences as when I was trying to find the something in a shopping mart, two ladies put their shopping on hold and helped me to find that thing even with out me asking for it or a guy who knows english offered to help as he came to know that we were unable to understand korean language and try to find the way to certain place. so lots of small incidences and each one leave good impression about the people here. Its not that they are only good with us, but also with in themselves, I visited lots of crowded market places, metro stations and malls and I didn't find anybody involved in any kind of argument or spat with anybody else, the people generally are easygoing, cool and means their business kind of persons.

It really feels strange not to see any police man or security personnel around even in busy roads, markets and stations here, the reason behind is not only super automated electronic vigilence driven by CCTV cameras but also the general tendency here to follow rules. Unlike in India following rules and prescribed way of behaving in public comes naturally to koreans. Where as in India its just opposite to that, we are used to break rules anywhere and every where and to follow them requires some efforts. and That is the reason why inspite of the visible efforts of administration and high deployment of police, Nothing seems to be working the way it should be. Although I can give some benefit to us of the fact that we are quite larger than korea and population of only Delhi/NCR is close to that of whole korea. But still there is lot to improve for us on the attitude part about these things.

so before closing this entry I can say that I would like to see lots of things in my country as it is in korea, and for that I would like to play my part when I go back to India and I hope we all play our part so that difference can be made.

In the end I would like to share a intresting fact about korea which I didn't know earlier : In korea they calculate their age not from the day they had born but nine months prior to that.. I wonder when they celebrate their birthday then.. Though I will find out and let you know... :)

Arrived in South Korea...Starting of a testing journey full of fun hopefully:)

Thank god Today I have got some time to sit with myself in Korea. I arrived in Korea on 31st of october, that is last week or so or more than that I guess. So approximately 10 days in Korea. I was planning to pen down my experiences in the new country from the beginning but lots of different things had stopped me doing that till now.
But thankfully today I am on my laptop to start recording my experiences in Korea and with Koreans. This is my first overseas trip so I won’t be able to compare it with other different countries but yes I will see how it is in Korea in comparison of India and how I will pass my stay here, happy stay hopefullyJ.
The emotional angle-
I have no hesitation to say that my first and foremost challenge in the new country is the emotional one. Far from my family, my country, It was not the easy first 3-4 days for me here. I was never so far from my home for prospective so many days, I studied outside home though after my 10+2 but my institution is never that far that I can’t visit home nearly every week. So it was a new experience and it took 3-4 days to realize that yes I am quite far but not so far thanks to Telephone and internet, which are two life lines here for me. I never used to call home in India. Parents always had the complaint that I never call but now I am calling at least twice a day, And It really feels nice and helped me a lot adjusting in the alien country. Thanks for unconditional support, love and affection of my family and friends.
Arrival -
I was not alone who came to Korea to join SK C&C, we were all 15 who arrived on the same day from same flight. Few of us met at Delhi airport only and other met at Seoul airport. There was lot of difference in both the places. In Delhi it was damn crowded and in Seoul it was as if we 15 were the only people at the airport. Mr. Ki Ho Park from HR team of SK C&C had received us and we started the bus journey of approximately 1 hour from Air port to the places where we’re going to stay for next one year.
In this Bus journey, On the one hand we were seeing sites of beautiful city of Seoul but at the other hand we were feeling really hungry after long flight hours. Later was solved as Devendra brought the poori-sabji from India and we had potentially the last meal cooked in India for next few months, and it was really delicious, I was already feeling emotional about the poori-sabji and that’s why cherished it a lot.
After one and half hour or so we all reached our apartments. We are all given apartments in different buildings across the three different areas although close to each other and well connected by metro train. Mine is in Golden Valley Apartments at the place called Migeum. Apartments are better than at least I expected, they are fully furnished with TV, Refrigerator, AC, Heater and all necessary furniture.
Food, the biggest challenge-
Food is the biggest challenge in Korea for a foreigner and more to Indians like us who are strict vegetarian. There are lots of restaurants here but they serve Korean food which is really hard even to survive with its smell. First day we didn’t think about anything and used noodles we bought from India as our dinner. But arranging each meal day after day is a challenge here more to a person like me who never cooked anything except noodles. But thanks to Mr. Anil Kapoor, not the film star but the guy who came with us and stays in same building as me and fond of cooking, I just need to wash dishes and do some work here and there to get proper Indian dinner. Although I am planning to try my hands on cooking very soon may be in next few monthsJ. Apart from that there are few good Indian restaurants around. And in the short stint, we tried three of them. So hopefully I will be able to survive.
Although Company is also aware of the issues we have regarding food here and they understand our concern as they also planned dinner in an Indian restaurant ‘Taj’ close to office on our second day here. But it’s not actually the solution of the problem as we cannot afford those expensive Indian restaurants so often unless something like that day happens every day. That day five of us dared to go to ‘Taj’ for having lunch as we were in no mood and condition to have just Vitamin-D from sun and water in Lunch. We ordered three ‘thalis’ for five of us and was planning to order extra naan if need be. We were just having our lunch when suddenly the restaurant guy came and told us that our bill is already paid so order anything you want. I asked how? And He told that Mr. Prakash (VP of Global Service Division of SK C&C, fortunately an Indian) is here for lunch and he has paid our bill. That was a jackpot for us and we ordered some more food and beverages too after that. It was a great filling meal by the grace of Mr. Prakash. God Bless Mr. Prakash J Hope to get more of such meals during my stay here….

Company and Office-
The company I have joined here in Seoul is SK C&C, third largest Korean company in IT services sector, they are looking for global expansion and our recruitment is the part of long term plan to have a dedicated development center in India so all in all a very good opportunity to grow and prove yourself. Their head quarter building SK-u Tower at a place called jeong-ja is state of the art construction with really top class facilities. And it would really be a charm working here, though we are not going to work in head office, we will be working in Telecom section of SK C&C which is in the different building and we are still to visit that office.

So it’s just the starting of my journey in Korea and lot to come in terms of the experiences, cultural differences and all other activities so just check it out, this is the general summary of few anxious starting days as got the chance of writing after ten days. So more specific entries are in waiting hopefully with lots of fun and information.